“Are you mad at me?” The question is presented as an inquiry about the other person, but it isn’t really asking about that person. It’s more of a statement: “I now need another shot of reassurance, please” is the message. So it’s both a request, and a report about the speaker’s inner state of anxiety and affect-hunger. What it is not, is the very thing its literal meaning presents it to be: an expression of interest in how the other person is actually feeling. This mismatch between the question’s overt meaning and its real use can be annoying. Asked often enough, it can even make the hearer feel a little bit …mad.
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